Thistle

A story by my old friend Wayne Mooney

Thistle fires her shotgun at the Lavender Woman. No recoil. No muzzle flare. Stupid! She presses against a pillar, feels bullets strike it. Mint crouches in the narrow gap behind Lincoln’s marble throne, watching. “Need shells,” Thistle signs to her. She spells it out one-handed, her gun clenched in the other. What the girl throws her is too big and pale pink. She frowns, but Mint gestures insistently. She brings the conch to her ear.